The End of a Crippling Strike
British Ship Strike Called Off
- One Year for Study of Industry
By W. GRANGER BLAIR -
Special to the New York Times - 30 June 1966
London, 29 June
The leaders of Britain's National Union of Seamen decided today to end the
45-day-old maritime strike. By a vote of 29 to 16, the union's executive council which Prime Minister Wilson
said yesterday had a “lack of guts”, ordered the seamen back to work as of midnight Friday.
After a four-hour meeting at its headquarters in South London, the council voted to “adjourn strike action” for a year to permit the special Committee of Inquiry headed by Lord Pearson to conclude its scheduled study of seagoing employment and the shipping industry.
When a spokesman for the union came out to announce the decision, a group of placard carrying seamen broke into boos and catcalls. The placards read, “Don't Let Us Down”. One seaman shouted, “You will have to get somebody else to sail your ships”. Another, referring to the union leaders, cried, “None of you lads will be here in 12 months’ time”. While some seamen were smashing their placards on the entrance steps to the headquarters, another wrote “Judas Hogarth” in red chalk on the steps, a reference to William Hogarth, head of the seamen's union.
There were also reports of denunciations of the council's decision in the more militant ports of the North East and North West coasts, such as Liverpool. Mr. Hogarth said tonight that the strike had been a victory for the seamen. A spokesman for the shipowners’ federation said their initial reaction was “one of relief”.
It appeared that the seamen had gained little more than was offered to them three weeks ago when the Pearson Committee proposed a compromise that would increase the industry's costs by about 9.5 per cent. This was well above the 3.5 per cent norm set by the Government's anti-inflationary policy on prices and incomes.
The Pearson committee had recommended the immediate reduction of the work week from 56 hours to 48 hours for the same pay. This would be followed by a 40-hour week in a year. The seamen had wanted the 40-hour week introduced immediately, a 17 per cent pay rise, instead of in two years as offered by the shipowners, a 13 per cent rise.
A British able seaman earns, including overtime and other payments, an average of $56 a week. The Pearson Committee also had recommended that annual leave for the seamen be reduced from an average of 51 days to 39 days.
Last week the shipowners offered to increase the leave period to 48 days in return for a reduction in the number of seamen manning routine watch posts. Thus what the seamen finally accepted was the Pearson Committee compromise on the 40 hour week plus their own compromise with the shipowners on the question of annual leave.
There were many who felt that this could have been achieved some time ago. Mr Wilson attributed the delay to strong pressure on the union from the Communists as well as their own militant members to hold out for more. The Prime Minister charged yesterday that Britain's Communist party was trying to take over the seamens union and wreck the Government's anti-inflationary policies. He accused the union leaders of a “lack of guts” in facing up to Communist and militant pressure.
When the decision to end the strike was announced, 891 vessels of Britain's merchant fleet of about 2,500 ships were idle and 26,500 seamen of a union membership of 62,500 were out of work. It is expected to take considerably more than the two days after the strike officially ends before all the struck ships and their crews will be ready to put to sea again. Shortly after the settlement was reported the value of the British Pound rose on the foreign exchange market.
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